Authors: Teri Riggs
He opened the money clip to count out his money and hesitated for a moment before shoving the clip into his pocket. “I might as well take it all. I doubt you’ll need it anymore.”
As he walked away his voice echoed through the dimly lit garage. “I might even have a look at that Yankees game when I get home.”
CHAPTER
NINE
A PRELIMINARY CHECK OF THE VICTIM’S CLOTHING REVEALED HER DRIVER’S LICENSE ZIPPED INTO AN INSIDE POCKET OF HER SKIRT.
Their victim now had a name—Liz Clayton.
Liz had lived in Vegas about seven years. She’d been a dancer who apparently, like most of the showgirl hopefuls, never made it to the stage. Prostitution was probably supposed to be a temporary fix.
Wilder and Kennedy visited her home, a nice apartment in a fairly decent neighborhood. Her closet was filled with an abundance of working clothes and wigs. It was amazing how much money it took to look so cheap. It didn’t take an ace detective to surmise if Liz could afford the closet full of hooker clothes, she must have been damn good at her chosen profession. Unfortunately, it looked like that profession had cost Liz Clayton her life.
The hardest part of the day would be informing Liz Clayton’s mother that her daughter was not only dead, but an apparent victim of murder. Notifying a victim’s family was one of the toughest parts of the job, but seemed even more so in this case because Kennedy was sure Liz’s poor mother had no idea that her baby girl was a prostitute.
Mrs. Clayton’s house was located near Nellis Air Force base. It was small, but comfortable looking. Kennedy planned to stand during the whole notification, most likely near the front door. Wilder told her she always looked like she was ready to run at the first sign of hysteria. Yeah, he was right about that. She really hated next-of-kin notifications.
While she stood, Wilder settled in next to Mrs. Clayton on her well-worn couch with its loud, floral patterned cushions and broke the news.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Detective. My Liz was an entertainer. A dancer. She’s worked for the last six years in a show at one of the big casino-hotels.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Clayton,” Kennedy offered. “You must have misunderstood your daughter.”
“No, that can’t be true. Liz would never sell her body like that.” She went to a chest and pulled out a photo, showing it first to Kennedy and then to Wilder. “She gave me this a few years back. See.” She pointed to the picture. “This is her in one of her costumes.”
Mrs. Clayton sat back down next to Wilder. “She told me all about the glamorous costumes and the flashy dance numbers. She performs two shows, six nights a week. She sends me money every month to help with my bills.”
Wilder said, “Did you ever see her show, Mrs. Clayton?”
“Oh no, Detective James. I don’t drive and even if I did, there are certain areas of Las Vegas I’d never visit, especially at night. Since Mr. Clayton passed, I prefer to stay right here near Nellis. Besides, Liz thought some parts of the show, not the ones she was in mind you, might be a little too risqué for my tastes.”
Kennedy admired the way Wilder gently asked his next question. “What was the name of the revue your daughter danced in?”
“I’m not sure. Liz never told me, I guess. Actually, she never mentioned what hotel her show was at either.” She paused for a moment and looked puzzled, then defeated. “Oh my God. You’re right. Liz never told me because she’s been lying to me all these years.”
Wilder patted the sobbing woman on her shoulder. “I’m sure Liz was just trying to do what she thought was best for you.”
“You’re right. My Liz was a good girl.”
“I’m sure she was.” Wilder stood and moved toward Kennedy, still glued to her spot near the door. Liz’s mother followed.
Kennedy said, “We’ll find your daughter’s killer and put him behind bars.” She might suck in the giving comfort department, but she could damn well catch the bastard that killed Liz Clayton.
“Thank you, Detective.” “No problem.”
It
was past midnight when Kennedy arrived at the Clark County Office of the Medical Examiner to observe Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Jackson Hoff—often referred to as Jack-Off—perform the autopsy on the murdered prostitute found in the alley the night before.
When she arrived, Dr. Hoff was up to his elbows, literally, in Liz Clayton’s body. He was pulling God-only-knew-what out of the woman’s abdominal cavity.
“Detective, your perpetrator must be pretty confident you’re not going to catch him. The cocky bastard didn’t even bother to wear a condom. We’ve got semen everywhere. I took some scrapings from under her nails before cleaning her up. We’ll see if that yields any other evidence for us to nail his ass with.”
“Semen? Scrapings? We’ve got DNA?” Kennedy grimaced. “Now all we need is a suspect to match.”
“Bingo, Detective. You know the drill,” Dr. Hoff answered, never glancing up
from his work. “Just like the Memory game, you have to find the two matching
cards.”
Only this wasn’t a game.
Kennedy felt the familiar chill she always got when observing in the morgue. The chill had nothing to do with the cooler temps maintained in the autopsy room.
“You’re starting to get that cop-in-the-zone look Wilder’s always accusing you of having. Something wrong, Detective?”
“No, just looking.” She rubbed her arms, trying to warm them. “Just looking?”
“Last night when I saw this woman’s body, I saw the messiness and the ugliness of murder. Now, here, everything is all neat and orderly. The dirt, the outlandish make up and the fake hair are gone.” Kennedy eyed the neat blonde wig sitting nearby. “Her eyes are closed now, making her look almost peaceful. Big difference from last night. A really big difference. And it’s all a lie. There’s nothing peaceful about murder.”
Another chill curled up her spine. Meeting the victim’s mother had made a difference too. Knowing someone was grieving for the dead woman made her murder all the more real. Made finding her killer even more crucial.
“She is tidied up somewhat.” The ME’s eyes stayed on the work at hand. “We hose down a body after we get all the exterior samples we need. Then, the body is cleaned before proceeding with the rest of the autopsy.”
Dr. Hoff looked at the body dissected before him and slowly shook his head from side to side. “But, you’re right, even cleaned up, murder is ugly.”
“Yeah.”
Kennedy watched as various organs were removed, examined and weighed. About an hour and a half into the autopsy Kennedy’s cell phone rang. She moved to the room’s double doors as she flipped it open.
“What’s up, Wilder?” She turned to face the autopsy table and continued to watch the ME work.
“Hey partner, hope you caught some sleep tonight. We got another dead prostitute in Hooker Haven. Her body was found in a parking garage.”
S
he leaned against the wall, wishing she’d managed to get a little shut-eye earlier. “Anywhere near the alley where Liz Clayton’s body was found?”
“Couple blocks over, but still on the Clark County side. M.O. looks the same.”
“Not a good sign, Wilder.” She blew out a deep breath.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’ll pick you up in twelve minutes.”
“Whoa there a minute, I’m at the morgue. I’m sitting in on Liz Clayton’s autopsy. They’re so backed up over here that Jack-Off is just now working on her. I’ll catch up with you at the scene and fill you in then. Two birds, one stone, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
Wilder gave Kennedy the address of the garage and she committed it to memory. She went back to the autopsy table and watched impatiently as Hoff did his thing. When he started putting the victim back together again, Kennedy removed her paper gown and gloves and tossed them into the trash, wondering why she bothered gowning up. The smell of death permeated the useless paper gown. The stench would hang on her clothes, suspended around her like a cloud, until she got a chance to catch a shower and change of clothes. The appalling smell, a constant reminder of death.
Like she needed a reminder.
K
ennedy
jumped into the 1965 cherry red Mustang convertible she’d inherited from her father. Unfortunately, the air conditioner was on the fritz. If the air conditioned, department-issued cars weren’t so butt-ugly and obvious, she’d have requisitioned one of them. But departmental cars screamed ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-cop’.
She put the Mustang’s top down, hoping to get some air blowing through the car and over her body. At three in the morning, it was still ridiculously hot out. A good breeze would help cool her down and maybe blow the smell of death off of her.
Hooker Haven was bursting at the seams with activity. Flashing lights hung above the doors of a few rundown, penny-slot casinos and bright lights glowed in the windows of porn shops. Neon illuminated the framed pictures of nude women, and flashing lights pointed to cheap strip joints and tittie bars. An oversized marquee advertised Triple X-rate
d, Technicolor sex, 24/7. The
occasional dark and crumbling building punctuated the neon.
The garage where the body was found was nestled in the midst of all the action. Kennedy found a place to park on the street and walked up to the third floor of the garage, now blocked off with yellow crime scene tape. Mandi Clifton and the Crime Scene Analysts were processing the scene.
Stepping around the yellow tape, Kennedy flashed her badge at the uniformed officer standing guard. Wilder was kneeling next to the hooker’s body when she approached, removing an envelope with a gloved hand.
He glanced at his watch and raised an eyebrow. “Glad to see you could join us, Kennedy. I was waiting until you got here to get started. Then, I realized that could be a long damn wait.”
“Hey, I was tied up. I told you Jack-Off was still doing the autopsy when you called. He was too close to the finish line for me to just walk away. I stayed until he was ready to put her back together.” Kennedy nodded at the forensic photographer gathering his gear. “You weren’t waiting on me. You were waiting for forensics to do their thing.”
“Can’t slip anything past you.” Wilder gave her a smile. “Put on some latex and take this envelope for me. I want to check the victim’s pockets for money and keys. Like Liz Clayton, this one doesn’t seem to have a purse. Maybe our girl here carried all her womanly junk in her pockets.”
Kennedy raised one eyebrow as she pulled on a pair of gloves and took the envelope. “Womanly junk? Are you serious, Wilder? What a crappy way to describe the stuff in a woman’s purse. Is all that shit you’re carrying in your pockets called manly junk?”
“Men only carry the necessities. Money and charge cards. An I.D. Keys. Maybe a comb. Oh yeah, and an emergency supply of condoms. Manly junk, if you wish.” He tipped an imaginary hat at her. “You think ‘woman’s treasures’ is a better way to describe all the crap you women drag around in your pocket books?”
He began emptying the dead hooker’s pockets. “Let’s see here. Condoms. Shit, here’s a used one. Why in the hell would that be in her pocket?”
“I doubt it belongs to the perp. She might have done a john in his car and shoved it in her pocket to throw away later. Then she got side-tracked? Maybe by the killer.”
“Sounds logical.” Wilder bagged the condom and continued his search of her pockets. “A house key. Lipstick. And last, but not least, a cell phone. No money. No jewelry.” He dropped the items in an evidence bag.
“Mandi estimated time of death between eight PM and midnight. The used condom says she turned at least one trick tonight.”
“And a working prostitute should have some money.” “Her money is missing.”
Kennedy nodded. “Let’s have a look-see at this envelope.”
She opened it and found a picture of the victim standing in front of wroughtiron fencing by a pool of water with several fountains spewing in the background. One hand held two shopping bags.
“Check this out, Wilder.” She held the photo out. “Same stalker-type photo as Liz Clayton’s. Looks like she’s in front of one of the casinos or shopping malls in town, I’m just not sure which one.”
“There are plenty of fountains and water shows in this town.” Wilder agreed. His eyes were still on the pockets he was digging through. “Is the word BEFORE written across the photo?”
“Big bold letters like last time. I guess this means there’ll be a follow-up picture with AFTER written across it. The big question is, where will it turn up? I’m going to bet it goes to Ed Hershey. How about you?”
“I’d put my money on him too.” She heard him mumble, “The prick,” under his breath as he stood up and stretched, then reached for the picture.
“Wilder, it’s only been twenty-four hours since the first victim. This killer isn’t wasting any time. Hell, Liz Clayton’s body isn’t even cold yet.”
Wilder tapped the photo lightly. “Lieutenant Hazelwood is not going to be happy. One more with this same M.O. and our murderer qualifies as a serial killer and we’ll have to decide whether or not to bring in the FBI.”